An Interview with an English Dad Blogger

2 June 2017

Last week Jamie interviewed Rina and me about Dutch dads for his own blog. I thought it would be nice to ask him a few questions back about what it’s like raising his kids in the UK right now. It was also great to get to chat to another fellow blogger and parent.

Let’s first introduce you to our readers…

I’m Jamie Day and I write an award-winning (no, really) dad blog called A Day In The Life Dad. I’ve been blogging since August 2015… so coming up to two years. I’m dad/climbing frame/ponytail fixer/train track builder to Edie and Arlo.

I’m also the new Editor of dad blogzine Father Inc and I contribute monthly pieces to other magazines and websites.

Jamie, what got you into blogging? What’s your main line of work (or daily activity)?

I love writing and I love my children; put the two together and you’ve basically got a dad blog… My wife, Georgia was the one who actually encouraged me to start. She’d seen so many mums doing well online but noticed a distinct lack of decent dad writers, so she bullied me into giving it a go. God damn her!

What’s it like raising kids in the UK for you? Did you agree with some of the experiences my English friends described in the book? 

Things are getting better for us dads. In most places, men can now share paternity leave and there are a lot more opportunities to work from home. That said, often when I’m out with my children I find I’m the only dad there. Where are all the other dads? Hopefully not chained to their desk.

What are the main challenges English parents face, in your opinion? Did you move to the countryside to get away from some of them?

Life with kids in the UK seems to go at 100mph. Aside from day to day family life, there’s this scary social pressure of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ or perhaps that should now be ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ given this pressure has emerged from social media. This competitiveness is seemingly ingrained into our British consciousness and it’s starting to get out of hand. Our children must go to a certain school, they must have expensive toys and they must wear monochrome! There’s so much pressure on parents and children, we often forget the fundamental basics of just living and enjoying life with our children. We moved out of London to the countryside for some space, more time together and just to slow down a bit.

How much freedom can you allow your kids and how much freedom do you want to allow them?

When my children are a bit older, I’d love nothing more than to allow them to disappear for the day on their bikes, like the Dutch do, so they can enjoy some freedom. My childhood was like that but sadly those days seem like a long time ago. Nowadays parents fear what might happen and unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll see a return of such independence. So in reality, I’ll try and give them as much freedom as possible, but will always have one eye on what they’re up to.

How old are your kids now and how do you and your partner share the home workload?

My daughter Edie is 4 and my son Arlo is 1. My wife Georgia works in London and doesn’t get home until late, so I have the kids morning and night, and then the weekends are spent together trying to slow down a little.

Are attitudes to hands-on dads changing much?

I don’t have to go far with the kids before I hear “you’re on daddy duty are you?” or “you’re babysitting the kids are you?” Er, no actually. It’s called parenting. Slowly attitudes are changing, but there’s a long way to go before hands-on dads are seen as the norm.

What about gender reinforcement? I see more back home than here.

My son likes to play with diggers as much as he likes to play with garishly pink dolls, and my daughter likes sword fights as much as she likes swinging from a tree. I just want them to be happy and I don’t waste my time on narrow-minded people who can’t appreciate that.

What is your next parenting goal?

Aside from getting Edie to stop waking me up at 4am? There are lots of small things, like teaching Edie to swim without arm bands and Arlo needs to start playing football soon if he’s ever going to get signed up by Real Madrid, but more importantly, I just want them to continue being happy, carefree, innocent children. In a world riddled with problems, children like them are the future.

How could British parents adopt a more Dutch parenting approach?

We should just simplify family life and enjoy spending time together. I for one am guilty of over-thinking family time and planning extravagant and expensive outings, that whilst lovely, aren’t always necessary. Time just spent simply enjoying each other’s company could be even more fun and importantly, rewarding for the children.
Follow Jamie here:
Instagram: @adayinthelifedad
Facebook: @adayinthelifedad
Twitter: @dayinthelifedad

And fellow mum or dad bloggers from around the world – we’d love to exchange thoughts and experiences with you too, so do write in.

The Grammar School Debate From the Outside

13 September 2016

grammer-school-debate-1

 

For far too many children in Britain, the chance they have in life is determined by where they live, or how much money their parents have,’  Theresa May said last week, referring to the in-built inequities in the British school system. There is a gaping chasm between the quality of state schooling available in the south and what you can get in the rest of the country. And then there are the public (private) schools which are better than any of these anyway (though she doesn’t say that). You’re either rich or you’re f*cked in the UK is how many parents see it. Reform would be welcome to most.

But May’s first speech as Prime Minister promising plans for new grammar schools is causing a furore. ‘Theresa May entrenches segregation and privilege with her education reforms’, was one such headline. ‘We will fail as a nation if we only get the top 15 per cent to 20 per cent of our children achieving well,’ Sir Michael Wilshaw, Chief Inspector of Schools, declared on Radio 4, underlining the typically Anglo-Saxon ambition for all children to achieve great A levels.

What’s the problem with grammar schools then? In the Guardian, Sam Freedman argues that only a tiny minority of children from disadvantaged backgrounds actually attend these schools and, really they cater for the middle classes. (Hang on: what’s wrong with the middle classes? They can’t always afford private school fees either.) He goes on to state that ‘all the top education systems in the world are comprehensive,’ which is where I get all bristly. It’s patently untrue when you consider the Netherlands which does have a selective system and scores excellently in the OECD report he himself quotes from.


The Dutch system is a great improvement on the British one and it’s one of the main attractions of life here as a parent. Born into the non-affluent middle class, I attended a small-town grammar school in the Midlands myself. It wasn’t all it was cooked up to be, as I later found out when I went to uni. The privately-educated kids were way ahead academically and it took me a couple of terms to catch up. So as I see it, if you want the best education in the UK right now you have to pay for it, grammar schools or not. The Netherlands on the other hand, has a
unified school system, paid for by high taxation. You don’t need to be rich to attend the top schools.

Dutch children attend primary school from 4 to 11 years of age and are streamed into different types of secondary schools after that. I’ll explain but bear with me, it’s complicated. There are grammar schools – ‘gymnasiums’ – which provide an academic education (VWO)  including Latin and Greek in preparation for university entrance. There are mixed schools which offer the academic stream (VWO) and the professional stream (HAVO – preparation for higher non-academic education). There are schools offering just HAVO. And there are schools providing the various types of vocational education (VMBO). That’s not all though. If you want more mobility, there are large schools that offer all of the education types, the equivalent to the British comprehensives. Children are divided into these streams around the age of 12, after aptitude tests throughout primary school, and character assessment. If a child isn’t interested in knuckling down to bucketloads of Latin and Greek, they won’t be recommended for a gymnasium. You don’t want to set them up to fail. Children who do better than expected can move up a stream.

‘Achievement’, ‘academic’ and ‘meritocracy’ seem to be the catchwords of the grammar school debate. ‘In a true meritocracy, we should not be apologetic about stretching the most academically able to the very highest standards of excellence,’ May says. ‘Every child should be given the opportunity to develop the crucial academic core.’ Everyone must achieve is the subtext and academic studies are preferable to any other kind. But it’s not like that in Holland. The Dutch school system aims to keep pupils engaged and happy and as a result achieves high attendance figures and good pass records. Although the upper middle classes can get hung up about getting their kids into gymnasiums, in general, there is no shame in going to the HAVO or attending a vocational school. The point is, the other schools provide a good education too! There’s a vocational school a couple of hundred yards from my house that teaches plant and animal science.  It’s got its own greenhouses and mini-farm out the back. My son and I often peer over the fence in envy at kids grooming ponies and planting bulbs.

The thing is, the British have become trapped in their own ideology – a utopian desire to believe that a meritocratic society might be possible, while having one of the most entrenched class systems in the world. Surely the point should not just be to build more grammar schools, but to provide a better range of education across the board and do away with the socially-divisive private school system? This seems to be what May herself wants: ‘Because if the central concern ordinary working class people have is that their children will not enjoy the same opportunities they have had in life, we need to ensure that there is a good school place for every child, and education provision that caters to the individual needs and abilities of every pupil.’ (Though she should certainly add the middle classes to the working classes.) She also makes it clear she doesn’t support the binary system of secondary moderns picking up the slack once grammar schools have taken the pick of the crop, but welcomes a more diverse selection of schools. Come and take a look at the Dutch system, I say. Don’t just build grammar schools but other types of successful schools that kids actually want to go to.